


Christmas Lights

by owlinaminor



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas, Drifting, M/M, Pacific Rim Secret Santa 2014, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 13:37:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2852705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s never liked Christmas much, but he thinks now that he might be starting to understand the spirit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Lights

**Author's Note:**

> written as a secret santa gift for the lovely [spaceshipearths](http://spaceshipearths.tumblr.com/), who gave me the prompt "Christmas lights."

Holiday parties at the Hong Kong Shatterdome are always top-notch.

There’s something about a group of the best, brightest, and bravest from around the world gathering in one place, each person with their own holiday traditions, coming together to celebrate the fact that they’d managed to survive another year through sheer willpower that just gave the parties a certain _excitement_ that couldn’t be found anywhere else.  The decorations are low-budget but creative, the alcohol illegal but spectacular, the food missing key ingredients but delicious.  It’s impossible not to feel so connected to everyone stuck in that giant dome, from technicians to custodians to jaeger pilots.  And maybe there’s an undercurrent of fear – _this could be our last winter_ – threatening to breach from just beneath the surface, but if anything, that makes people even more determined to have the time of their lives.

The parties are, as Newton Geiszler says, rad as hell.  Hermann Gottlieb has never been to one.

He only knows all about them because a certain loud, energetic kaiju biologist goes to every party, every year without fail, then spends the next week telling his lab partner all about what happened in excruciating detail in some kind of attempt to coerce him into attending the next one.  Hermann isn’t really sure why Newton does this, to be honest – there’s no way that someone else’s enthusiasm is actually going to push him to spend hours listening to much too loud music and watching other people get drunk.  He’d much rather spend his Christmas Eve alone, catching up on some reading, and no amount of pestering and funny stories from Newton is going to change that.

Which is, obviously, why he’s currently standing in the corner at that very same Christmas party, scanning the crowd for that very same man.  Hermann tries to stand as straight as he can, lifting his head in an attempt to find Newton without having to actually venture into the realm of tinsel and strings of lights, dancing and alcohol.  (He’s a little scared that if he goes too far into the crowd, he’ll get sucked in and won’t be able to go back out.)

And then, Hermann spots him – he’s talking to Tendo and the Kaidonovskys, a mostly-empty glass on his hand and a grin on his face.  From the red tint to his cheeks and the way he’s swaying ever so slightly, it looks like Newton’s already had a little too much to drink.  Hermann shakes his head – that idiot, he’s going to have the _worst_ hangover in the morning –

And then, Newton turns his head – just a fraction of a centimeter, but it’s fraction enough.  He notices Hermann standing like a ghost in the corner and gives him this grin, a thousand watts or a million or enough energy to power a jaeger.  And he raises his hand and waves, beckoning – and he shouts something, could be “You came!” or “Get over here!” or –

Hermann turns and flees down the corridor.

His breath comes in rapid-fire bursts – no steady march, this, more like a hopeless sprint to say ahead of some terrifying beast that continues to gain on him – and when he crashes against the wall and slides down to sit, head pressed against his knees, the race is far from over – it’s barely begun.

Hermann does not fall in love.  He doesn’t allow himself to.  The people he gets close to – and that number is pitiful to begin with – either grow bored of him or learn to despise him.  They always abandon him, in the end.

But that’s _okay_ , he doesn’t _mind_.  He has his numbers, his formulas, his mathematics of perfect order that will always have more problems for him to solve.  He built a wall of logic, derivatives, polynomials, theories, proofs – built a wall up around his heart, locked it tight and threw away the key, and decided that the world would be much better off if his only serious relationship was with his numbers.

So, then, why did one glance – _one glance_ – from Newton Geiszler, wild biologist and aggravating coworker, bring him more joy than any solution to a difficult problem?

It’s ridiculous for Hermann to think like this, he knows.  Newton is a smart man, and he can be charming and funny, much as Hermann hates to admit it.  He has _friends_ , people who more than just tolerate him, not to mention six doctorates, the ability to get a job at probably any university in the world ... He could do much better, and probably knows it.

There’s no reason for Hermann to tell Newton anything.  He’s been down this path before – he’s run this particular model, and he knows the outcome well enough.  Another trial is not necessary.

Hermann picks himself up, wipes his spectacles, and returns to his room.  He has some reading to do.

(And if, during the next couple of weeks – months – years – he glances at his coworker when he’s supposed to be working hard on formulas, that is of no consequence whatsoever.)

* * *

“You would do that for me?  Or – do it with me?”  Newton is wide-eyed and trembling, scared and hopeful and this close to fizzling out in one burst of brilliance, and Hermann has never loved him more.

And, of course, there’s a part of him – the part that always asked if points would be deducted for working alone on group projects, the part that knew to aim for the farthest empty table when eating lunch in a new place, the part that was unsurprised when another friendship ended in distrust – that screamed at him, screamed _this is the worst mistake you can make._

_Do you want him to find out?  Do you want him to see all of those times you were watching when you should have been working, thinking when you should have been ignoring?  Do you want him to_ know?

But Hermann shoves that part down deep into his chest, tells himself that the world is much wider and more important than he is.  His feelings can wait.  If he survives – _you will survive_ , a voice that sounds oddly like the scientist beside him insists – _if_ he survives, he will deal with the dismissal that’s certain to come.  He has dealt with worse.

Hermann grins, and prepares himself for the thrill of a lifetime.  “Well, with worldwide destruction a certain alternative ... Do I really have a choice?”

* * *

_You cannot hide anything in the Drift._

_No matter how much you try, squeeze your eyes shut and concentrate with all your might to hide that one embarrassing memory or confession you’ll never be ready to share, you cannot prevail.  The Drift is a wide plain with no trees or rocks or old stone fences for you to shelter behind, and any hide-and-seek game will be very short and unkind._

_Your partner will learn everything about you.  He will see your classroom at age seven, with your desk pushed close to the back, away from your classmates.  He will hear your father yell at you at age fifteen, calling you disrespectful and ungrateful because you do not agree with him.  He will feel the cold wall behind your back at age thirty-three, holding you up as you decide to ignore your feelings, hold back the inevitable heartbreak.  He will learn how you became who you are – stone-cold anger with brilliance locked up, fearful of human connection and alone by necessity but still caring, caring far too much._

_And you will learn everything about your partner.  You will see the view from his bedroom window at age four, with his mother walking out for reasons he can’t yet understand.  You will hear him shouting at his professors at age sixteen, demanding that he get into the doctorate program so that people will finally listen.  You will feel the sting of alcohol coursing through his veins as he scans a crowd of revelers, hoping to find one man he wants to tell something important.  You will learn how he became who he is – too loud and too bright so that people have no choice but to take him seriously, shouting his brilliance until the world changes around him._

_Together, you will learn, and you will see.  The beasts are here.  They want your planet.  They know they can take it.  You must not let them._

_And so, you agree to push your feelings back – scrawl labels of_ later _and_ if we survive this – _and you push forward, demanding answers._ Who are you _and_ why are you here _and_ how can we stop you.

_They cannot hide from you.  You are too brilliant._

* * *

After everything – the jaegers’ last stand, the clock stopping, the promise of a future finally taking hold – Hermann sits on top of the Shatterdome and watches the lights of Hong Kong slowly turn back on.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asks a voice from behind him.

Hermann does not have to turn around to know who it is, but he does, anyway.  Newton probably needs much more medical attention than he got – he has the bloodshot eyes and barely suppressed panic of a college student the night before his hardest final – but there are other people who need it more, so he just went to the holy-shit-we-won party.  At least, Hermann had _thought_ he went to the holy-shit-we-won party.

“What are you doing up here?” Hermann asks.  “Shouldn’t you be ...”  He makes a vague gesture, intended to indicate the party and all of its no-doubt exciting activities.

Newton shrugs – he’s still wearing the same shirt as before, torn in two places and stained with sweat.  “I guess,” he admits, “but I’m not.”

“I thought Shatterdome parties were always ‘rad as hell,’” Hermann says, quoting Newton’s own description.  “And this one is particularly ‘rad,’ is it not?”

“Yeah, but if you think that, how come you never went to one?”  Newton turns to face Hermann – they’re sitting very close, he suddenly realizes.

“I ... I went to _one._ ”

“Yeah, I know you did.  I saw,” Newton says quietly.  “And then you left.”

Hermann remembers – Newton standing beneath the strings of Christmas lights, the smile on his face like a tiny sun.  And he remembers how Newton saw it, a memory drawn out by the drift – himself turning, face ashen, and hurrying away.  The memory is tinged with pain from one side, confusion from the other, and now, suddenly – regret.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Newton now.  “I was a coward.  I should’ve stayed.”

“No, you’re not.”  Newton shakes his head, strong-willed and emphatic.  “You’re a lot of things, Gottlieb – hard-ass, insufferable prick, horrible music snob –”

“Excuse me?”

Newton ignores the interruption.  “– and kind-of a terrible dresser, but a coward is _not_ one of them.  No coward would have done what you did with me today.”

Hermann tries to protest, to say that it was his duty, he had to help save the world, and anyway, he wasn’t about to let Newton _kill_ himself – but Newton just keeps on going.

“And besides, if anyone was a coward that night, it was me.”

“What?” Hermann asks, surprised.  (Newton is one of the bravest people he knows.  And the stupidest.)

“I should have followed you.”

The two of them are silent for a few minutes, after that.  One of them – it doesn’t matter which – moves a few inches closer, so that their shoulders are touching.  And then, somehow of their own accord, their hands touch and their fingers tighten around one another.  Newton leans his head onto Hermann’s shoulder and Hermann – who avoids human contact as a rule – lets him, feeling more at home than he has in decades.

Someday soon, they will kiss, then share a bed, then form a life together out of equations and experiments, bickering and understanding and love.  But for now, this is enough.

“All the lights are coming back on,” Newton says, reaching out his finger as though to touch the windows and streetlights and neon signs and people of Hong Kong, returning to life before their eyes.

“Yes, they are,” Hermann agrees.  “Everything’s getting brighter all at once.”

“It’s like Christmas.”

Newton doesn’t have to explain what he means – Hermann knows.  He’s never liked Christmas much, but he thinks now that he might be starting to understand the spirit.

“Yes,” he says.  “Like Christmas.”


End file.
